On this day in 1966, in the wake of spontaneous riots against police brutality, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. It was part of the Black Power movement, which broke from the integrationist goals and nonviolent protest tactics of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The BPP name was inspired by the use of the black panther as a symbol that had recently been used by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent Black political party in Alabama.
The party was active in the United States between 1966 and 1982, with chapters in many major American cities, including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia. They were also active in many prisons and had international chapters in the United Kingdom and Algeria. Upon its inception, the party’s core practice was its open carry patrols (“copwatching”) designed to challenge the excessive force and misconduct of the Oakland Police Department. From 1969 onward, the party created social programs, including the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, education programs, and community health clinics. The Black Panther Party advocated for class struggle, claiming to represent the proletarian vanguard.
In 1969, J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), described the party as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” The FBI sabotaged the party with an illegal and covert counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment, all designed to undermine and criminalize the party. The FBI was involved in the 1969 assassinations of Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark, who were killed in a raid by the Chicago Police Department.
Influences
The BPP’s philosophy was influenced by the speeches of Malcolm X, the teachings of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung of the Communist Party of China, and the anti-colonialist book The Wretched of the Earth (Les Damnés de la Terre, 1961) by the Martiniquan psychiatrist Frantz Fanon. The BPP’s practice of armed self-defense was influenced by African American activist Robert Williams, who advocated this practice against anti-black aggression by the Ku Klux Klan in his book Negroes with Guns (1962). Newton and Seale canvassed their community asking residents about issues of concern. They compiled the responses and created the Ten Point Platform and Program that served as the foundation of the Black Panther Party.
An interview with Huey P. Newton (1968)
(1966) THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY TEN-POINT PROGRAM
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Was talking to a friend at work. They were telling me about life back back home. “you know it wasnt so bad in the ussr. Of course, I left it so I did have my issues with it. Blelieve it or not, a lot of people look back at it with a sense of nostalgia. You had a place to live, a stable job. You didn’t have to worry about these things. Not like here. And we made a lot of progress. Sure you didn’t get to vote but in some ways it was better. To tell the truth even here I don’t vote very often. When I read the platforms of the people running, I don’t think it is worth my time.”
Also they told me they had assumed racial segregation and the way women were treated had been soviet government propaganda. Then upon immigration was shocked to learn Nope it was all true.
I’ve heard the quote “everything out government told us about communism was a lie. Everything they told us about capitalism was true”.
I genuinely don’t think people in the eastern bloc understood how bad and vicious capitalism is and that was a huge reason for the collapse. People who haven’t lived under this nightmare can’t believe it’s real.
I just found out a person I knew died because they couldn’t afford medicine. That would be too cliché in a movie you know.